Don’t Blink

First of all, I should introduce myself. I’m HopeCrowe from the Y-H messageboard, In The After, and Fanfiction.net. But like Sher said, some people also know me as Riss. I’ve been around the Cristina/Owen block for quite a while, so odds are that if you have been active in the C/O community, we’ve crossed paths at some point. I’ve watched Grey’s since the beginning (though I only watched religiously during seasons 2 and 3), but since season 5 I have been hooked like nothing else (let’s just say, before season 5 I had no idea television spoilers or promotional pictures even existed). The other day Sher invited me to come share my thoughts on this blog too and I happily agreed!

Let me just say that I’m not quite as articulate as Sher and I also don’t write quite as much (something I mock her about quite a bit) however, but I’m with her when it comes to staying positive. I mean, it really isn’t like that in my day-to-day life, but when it comes to Cristina/Owen (aka something out of my control) I don’t see the point in a gloom and doom perspective. Plus staying positive just makes it so much easier to get through the gaps between episodes.

As Sher mentioned, I’m also really into the musical aspect of Grey’s. That’s not to say that I have much knowledge in the area, but about 75% of my iTunes is music from Grey’s and sometimes when they use the right part of a song at the perfect part of an episode, it just makes it for me. So every now and then, when something musical sticks out to me, I’ll be bringing that up in addition to all the lovely Cristina/Owen commentary! And I’ll do you one more–each of my entries reviewing an episode will be the title of a song. Oh yeah. So with all that said, I’ll go ahead and dive into “Blink”.

I’ll be going through this episode chronologically– it just helps to keep my thoughts organized. So let’s start with Lexie barging into Cristina and Callie’s apartment. I think Cristina / Sandra Oh looked especially lovely in this scene and it’s always nice to know that Owen slept over (and is in her shower…naked…whoops, getting distracted!). Also loved Cristina’s “that’s quite a sandwich” (hee) and I’m hoping that the reference to her mother is a hint that Mama Rubenstein will be showing up to meet her daughter’s new boyfriend sometime soon. That woman just makes Cristina that much more hilarious. And while I might not be a huge Lexie fan, I love awkward moments and this girl knows how to make something awkward (seriously, she heard the shower running and went in anyway? Yikes!). While I would’ve given more than I’m proud to say to see Owen walk out of Cristina’s shower in a towel and give her a kiss, I will just have to settle for picturing that in my head.

"That's quite a sandwich!" (Credit for screencap goes to freaky_x.)

Back at the hospital, we see Teddy give Cristina a solo surgery (I loved Cristina’s blasé reaction of “eh, been there”), only to find out that it is a valve replacement cardio solo surgery. Cristina gets excited and it’s nice to see that Meredith is the first to find out (as you all will surely learn, I love the Cristina/Meredith friendship—it’s one of my favorite parts of the show). It’s also wonderful to see the faith that Meredith has in Cristina (“she’s ready, she just needs to breathe”). Some people took Owen’s “wow, you feel ready?” as him questioning Cristina’s skills, but I definitely didn’t. Owen is protective of Cristina and I think he also likes to make sure she keeps perspective on things. But in this case, I think it’s a perfectly normal thing to ask her. It’s something you ask when someone is doing something you know is important to them. If a friend has a big interview coming up, or a big test, or a presentation…I know many times that I’ve asked if they were ready, not as a way of doubting them, but it’s a way to calm them down. They say “yes” and suddenly they feel a lot more confident, right? So that’s how I see that. And please note Owen’s gigantic smile of pride when Cristina says she feels like a real cardio-thoracic surgeon right now. He even gives a little giggle—the man is downright giddy that Cristina is so happy. Let’s not forget, before Teddy went all Bridges of Madison County on Owen, he brought her there because Cristina was so miserable. Sometimes it’s hard to remember with all the angsty stuff poured on top. One last bit on this scene is when Teddy and Owen look at each other for a moment—poor Owen, yeah, he’s torn. But not the “do I love Cristina or Teddy?” way. He’s torn by how awkward and uncomfortable he is with Teddy now and how happy he sees that Teddy is able to make Cristina. We’ll see that come to a head later on.

Maybe his plan of bringing in Teddy as Cristina's cardio mentor wasn't such a bust...hmm. (Credit goes to freaky_x.)

I’m also a huge sports fan (yeah, I’m part of that tiny overlap of Grey’s and sports fans), so hearing about 10 seconds of Owen talking about football while the whole gang watches the quarterback’s hit on the computer…heavenly. I will admit, I was quite sad that we didn’t get to see Owen and Addison introduced. My two favorite redheads…oh well, there’s always the next crossover EVENT for that (I didn’t just roll my eyes…I swear).

Owen knows his football...and has friends! (Credit for screencap goes to freaky_x.)

Now we have poor Cristina trying her best to be a happy, patient, smiley doctor while indecisive valve replacement lady goes on and on about being allergic to bananas and the rash she’s getting from her blanket. Personally, I didn’t think that Teddy purposefully assigned Cristina an annoying patient for her first solo cardio surgery, but I also think she was a bit bothered to see Cristina have to deal with it.

This is the part where I can’t help but comment on how creepy I think Reed is. Her “flirting” just came off as psycho to me. Was I the only one? Alex really is attracted to crazy chicks. But there is also where I add how much I love Meredith’s death glare and creepy smile. Yeah, don’t go there. Another off-C/O topic comment, while I haven’t been a fan of Bailey for quite a while now, I found her telling the guy from Radiology about how complicated her life is in a very Bailey-like way, was pretty funny. Nice to see her not being all weepy and overly emotional—this suits her much better.

We get another scene with Teddy and Cristina discussing the upcoming valve replacement surgery (at which point I wondered, where the hell is Owen today?). Teddy has been snarky all day, but now we start to wonder where her head is at exactly. Did she know this patient was likely to change her mind (forcing Cristina to learn two new surgeries at the last minute)? Is she pushing Cristina to see just how far she will go before admitting she needs help? The wheels start turning…

We get yet another scene of Teddy and Cristina with indecisive valve replacement lady. She can’t decide between the pig and the cow and wants to see them in person to see which one she feels a “kinship” with. Our poor Cristina is being held hostage by this lady because we know she’ll bend over backwards to get to do this surgery. Teddy looks on with a little more amusement than I would’ve liked. It was sweet to see how much the patient loved Cristina though (“she’s so wonderful!”) and Teddy agrees, albeit with not the same genuine sentiment as the patient. I bet Teddy gets sick of hearing how great Cristina is from so many different people, heh. So Cristina goes hunting for her valves and manages to (quite hilariously) convince the man to get her a pig and cow valve (“you never look inside and find out the pig has a cholesterol problem?!”). Now that girl knows how to make friends, doesn’t she? We hear Meredith say that at the end of the day it comes down to a gut decision, while Cristina is convinced it’s a decision that comes from “fact and reason”. Which takes us to the scene where Cristina forces the patient to make a decision—pig or cow? Watching this scene again, it’s pretty funny. But we have our decision—pig, it is.

Pig or cow, woman?! (Credit for screencap goes to freaky_x.)

Ruh-roh. Cristina’s got a crazy bleeder in her surgery and Teddy is casually perusing Atlantic Monthly. Cristina, as calmly as possible, tells Teddy she’s have trouble to which she responds with “keep looking”. Now, if I found out something like this happened during my surgery, I would’ve had Teddy’s head on a plate. Just sayin’. She does give her a bit of guidance, but it still doesn’t seem to be enough to make sense to the residents watching in the gallery. In comes Owen to see how his lady love is doing in her big surgery only to be horrified at how the patient is crashing and Teddy is sitting in the corner. Owen saying Cristina might be too proud to ask for help and that Teddy should do something to help may again have come off as him not believing in Cristina, but I disagree. I think he’s all too eager to suspect Teddy of trying to undermine Cristina in any way possible, and rightly so. Like I said before, he’s protective of Cristina, and her career by extension. While I understand Teddy’s method, if Cristina hadn’t rebounded and that patient had died, it would’ve been a very serious problem. As far as Cristina kicking Owen out, I don’t read into it at all (especially as we see in their next scene, there’s no hard feelings there—there’s made of stronger stuff than that). Hearing people bickering in the back of your OR is not going to help your concentration in an already stressful situation. So she yells. Big deal.

Owen's pretty horrified at Teddy's behavior...and yeah, I guess that's important. But this picture is only in here because I think he looks super hot in it. Shameless, right? (credit for the incredibly hot screencap goes to freaky_x)

Now we finally get to see some more Owen (and man, does he look good!) as he sits on the bench with Teddy, discussing her questionable teaching methods. She insists that she would’ve stepped in if she had to but that Cristina needs to be pushed. Owen agrees, but he knows something else was going on. You can see that Teddy agrees as she sighs. This scene pointed out a couple things to me. Teddy needs to stop whispering Owen’s name so longingly. It pisses me off. That, and stop looking at his lips, woman. He’s not going to kiss you. Get a life and leave the man alone. Okay, rant’s over—I kept it short!

Caught in the act, Teddy! Seriously...go get a different man--you can look all you want, this one's not going to kiss you. (Credit for screencap goes to freaky_x.)

Now we get to the two big scenes (and my favorite song of the episode). The song, “Cosmic Love” by Florence and the Machine, with the heavy drum beating was perfect for the drama building up in these last few scenes. Now, you can so tell that Owen does not want to have to tell Cristina that Teddy is leaving. I think this gets even harder when he sees how she’s bursting at the seams with excitement over the surgery—he starts out smiling at how happy she is, but then he face falls when he remembers what he has to tell her. Two things I’d like to highlight in Cristina’s rambling. 1) she calls him Owen, very clearly, to his face. It’s been 34 episodes in the making, people. Let’s take a moment to relish! 2) Cristina says “please, I don’t want to see the face”. She knows he has a “face” at times like these. I think that’s totally cute, especially as something for Cristina to pick up. Now, when Owen tells Cristina that Teddy’s leaving (he’s forced to cut her off to do so) because it’s just “not going to work for her” (and we know it is because Teddy couldn’t control her emotions involving Owen and Cristina when it came down to it), with the look on Cristina’s face, I think she blames Owen. I know it’s not happy to hear, but I think she does in that moment. I mean, last thing she saw was Owen barging in and talking angrily to Teddy about not helping Cristina. She has no reason to think that Teddy would leave on her own. In my opinion, Cristina feels betrayed right then. She’ll bounce back and understand the whole story soon enough, but I think right then, she feels so…hurt because she’s been dying to feel this way again and now it’s being so unceremoniously torn away from her.

Cristina is....mmm....less than pleased to hear that Teddy is leaving. Any other woman would be happy to hear that the woman crushin' on her man was leaving...but those women are not Cristina Yang. (Credit for screencap goes to freaky_x.)

So, the big finale, we see Cristina running after Teddy who is just walking out. She starts asking Teddy what she wants to stay, offering her things like more money, a new cardio wing, a research lab, being able to work with vets (all of which, I wonder how she plans on getting…). Teddy tells her that that isn’t the problem and keeps walking, but Cristina jumps in front of her. She’s got tears in her eyes and telling her she the best teacher she’s ever had and she’s going to die if she doesn’t have someone like Teddy pushing her and believing in her. Teddy says it’s too complicated but Cristina presses her until Teddy blurts out that she wants Owen. Cristina says “Fine! Done! Take him!” before the words even finish coming out of Teddy’s mouth. You also hear Cristina gasp right after she says it.

If this face doesn't tell you how desperate and hysterical Cristina is at the moment, nothing else will. (Credit for screencap goes to freaky_x.)

Teddy gives her an incredulous look and then we see Cristina start calming down. It’s almost like hearing herself say that snapped her out of her hysterics. I think Cristina immediately regrets saying it. I mean, not only does it not quite make sense (you can’t make your boyfriend go date someone he doesn’t want to) but this is the same woman that said she couldn’t breathe without Owen. That couldn’t bear to turn away from him even after he choked her in his sleep. That went to therapy with him. He means more to her than that, but surgery means a lot to her too. She shouldn’t have to choose, but surgery has always been there for her. Owen has been a recent addition. I have to say, I’m very interested in seeing where this goes. I’m glad the “torn” person in this triangle is Cristina and not Owen (we’ve all seen that triangle several times…even just on Grey’s). But poor Cristina, she shouldn’t have to choose between her man and her career. And poor Owen, his plan of giving Cristina a cardio Attending she would love has worked…a little too well. And Teddy? Well…I can’t help but think of her like Izzie thought of Amanda sitting on that bench all day in the season premiere—“Go get a life”. Or better yet, a man that isn’t Owen!

And up next week:

With a name like “I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked” it has to be good!

Yes, well done Riss! lol…I too find Owen and his love of sports super-uber sexy!!!.. And you are soo right, for a split second look, I think Cristina does blame Owen. That’s why I’m so glad Teddy finally blurted out that she wanted Seattle Grace’s hottest trauma surgeon!! At last! And yes, this is the Cristina girl who can’t breath with out that red headed man. And this is the man who can’t help but kiss the life out of our gal everytime, and “just know” after only a couple of weeks in Greys time that he wanted to be around her the next 40 years! Our couple will come out on top!.. Like you I watched avidly season 1 and 2, sporadically season 3, none of season 4, and then by accident/ bored one night, season 5… hubba- hubba! The rest is CO history! And I discovered a love for Mat Kearney, Brandi Carlilse, Lenka, and others because of this show. Yes the music really adds something, just not when its playing too loudly though over any CO moments! Though KMK can make me oblivious to all around me.. anytime! hehe.